Smarty Marty

Tottenham, north London · b. 1997 · FARA Records

Smarty Marty (Martin, b. 14 March 1997, Tottenham, north London) is old enough to remember the real thing — pirate radio sets in a tower-block bedroom, the FM signal, reload culture, the specific echo of a concrete stairwell that UK garage and grime were half-made in. At twenty-nine he's the veteran of the three, the one who actually lived the era the UKG Grime Mix is reaching for, which is why that mix is his: he's not doing a revival, he's doing the thing he grew up on. He found his way in through pirate radio and the garage-into-grime transition, from a young teenager — the 2-step shuffle, the Korg M1 organ bass, the MC-over-the-DJ tradition, the rewind.

A classic UK garage / grime MC — call-out delivery rather than melodic rap, riding a 2-step shuffle, built for the crowd hook and the reload. Rougher and more rhythmic than the other two, with the pirate-radio energy of someone who learned to MC live over a DJ rather than in a booth. His instrument is timing and the hook. His influences run the UK garage and early grime era — 2-step, the Korg M1 organ bassline, pirate radio, reload culture — and the tradition of the garage MC as the voice that works the crowd; he's the most straightforwardly a product of a specific scene of the three.

The veteran — looser, funnier and more crowd-facing than the other two, with the easy authority of someone who's done a thousand sets. Where Travis is tired and Tyrel is hot, Smarty Marty is wry: he's seen this cycle before and says so, and the humour is part of how the anger lands. He learned to MC live over a DJ rather than in a booth, which is where the crowd-hook, call-out and reload instincts come from. Wry, seasoned, sharp.